In Mysterious Ways
by LoyaulteMeLie
Summary: Follow-up to '48 Hours'. Has someone in Starfleet HQ's administration made a mistake?
1. Chapter 1

**Star Trek and all its intellectual property is owned by Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no profit made.**

 **This story been beta-read by VesperRegina, to whom I offer my sincere thanks, as always.**

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With a familiar feeling of dread, Father Vincent Mackenzie pushed open the door of the diocesan administration building.

He hated these annual visits. He hated them for a great many reasons, primarily for the thought of how much was spent keeping up an ostentatious presence in this extremely affluent part of town that could be used for far more pressing needs more in tune with the fundamental message of Christianity: feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless, caring for the destitute. Still, it seemed that those further up the hierarchy thought differently; thought that it meant something to the world that the representatives of Christ in the world should have headquarters of gleaming glass and steel, fitted up and furnished in the latest style. The cost of the carpeting in the lobby alone would probably have run a drug abuse clinic for a year.

He had his own personal reasons for hating it, of course. This was the occasion when a flunky of the financial administration dragged him through his parish's accounts and complained that it was perpetually in the red because of his mismanagement.

Superficially, of course, things should have been different this year. The Xindi attack on Earth had turned many people's minds to more things than the everyday business of living, and attendances at most places of worship had soared. Many found comfort in praying for the success of those who had been sent to try to seek out those responsible, believing that their prayers might somehow be of benefit. Others prayed for the dead and bereaved. Some, even, sought out a church in order to hurl their grief and outrage personally at a God who hadn't lifted a finger to protect Earth from that cowardly and unprovoked assault. Wherever it was required, Father Mackenzie listened and prayed and comforted, or even just listened. It seemed to give a surprisingly large number of people consolation to think that _someone_ was willing to listen to them – even if it wasn't God in person.

The success of the _Enterprise_ 's mission had resulted in a second attendance boom; people everywhere wanted to thank the deity for their answered prayers and their deliverance. St Jude's had reaped its share of the benefits. Father Mackenzie had also done his own share of thanking God, but for the courage and tenacity of their deliverers, and for the lifting of the threat that had hung over his world for all those months.

So, with the increased attendance, there naturally came an increase in donations. The priest had been able to place substantial sums regularly in the parish's bank account. Unfortunately, the needs of the parishioners in his care showed no signs of abating, and over and over again he hadn't been able to refrain from dipping into the account for one good cause or another. Most of his own stipend was spent supporting a shelter for the homeless, so much so that sometimes he went to bed hungry because there wasn't enough left over to buy food for himself, but that was a detail he felt was his own business and no-one else's. Unfortunately, the fact that the parish's bank account was now undoubtedly in the red again, when it should have been handsomely in the black for once, was something that the diocesan accountant would certainly not have failed to notice.

It was therefore with a heavy heart that Father Mackenzie knocked on the door of the accounting administrator's office and prepared for his annual ordeal.

He was surprised when the man was actually at the door to greet him, and even more surprised when the greeting was accompanied by a hearty handshake.

"Sit down, Father! Sit down! You'll have a cup of coffee?" Deloitte, that was the name – Randall Deloitte – beamed at him like the biblical father welcoming home the Prodigal Son as he took his seat behind the desk again.

"Tea, please," ventured the priest, taking his own chair and wondering if his annual persecutor had been indulging in some illegal stimulant the night before. He'd wondered whether the man's face was actually capable of forming a smile – other than the occasional shark-like grin that accompanied some cutting witticism on the topic of _ill-advised generosity_ – and now it was impossible to avoid the reflection that when the owner thereof had taken himself off home that smile would linger in the air like that of the Cheshire Cat, floating bodilessly above the desk to disconcert the cleaning staff.

Deloitte paged his assistant and gave the order, omitting 'please' or 'thank you'. Mackenzie made a mental note to be particularly earnest in expressing his gratitude when the tea arrived, and then reproached himself for his lack of Christian charity in wanting to highlight the accountant's lack of decent manners.

"Well, let's get down to business! I'm sure you're a busy man, Father!"

"Just the usual," mumbled the priest, trying to surreptitiously rearrange his cassock so that the worn patches didn't show so badly; it would be awkward if questions were asked as to why he hadn't bought a new one with the allowance he was given for that purpose. This one was well over ten years old, and parts of it were getting threadbare, but he hoped it would see him through for a little longer.

"Well! Well! Indeed!" Deloitte turned to his computer and began scrolling through the screens. It was evident that the programme was practically ready to read, for it was bare seconds before he announced, "And here we have it! St Jude's Parish!"

The assistant came in, bearing a tray carrying the cup of tea and an espresso coffee. Father Mackenzie braced himself. This unnerving bonhomie must be the prelude to some particularly vindictive outpouring of sarcasm, to which he would be subjected in front of her; he had no expectation whatever that the castigation to come would be kept decently private.

The tray was set down on the desk. He mouthed 'Thank you so much!' and smiled at her.

She looked surprised, and smiled back. She was a pretty girl, and the sunlight through the window found an equally pretty ring on the slender hand that moved the milk and sugar closer for his convenience. Evidently she was engaged to some lucky young man.

He almost missed the total that had been read out. It only registered when it dawned on him that the man on the other side of the desk was still beaming.

He couldn't have heard it properly. "I…I beg your pardon?"

Deloitte repeated the sum. It was beyond respectably in the gray; it was positively pitch-black, at least by St. Jude's standards.

"There must be some mistake." There certainly must. He rarely took the time to inspect the parish accounts on his decrepit old third-hand computer (it wasn't working half of the time anyway), and the last time he'd done so it had already made depressing reading. He'd resolved to harden his heart for the rest of the financial year, but somehow he'd never quite gotten around to it. He kept a rough tally in his head, however, and had known as the end of the accounting year approached that once more he would undoubtedly be found wanting. As for where all the remaining money had actually gone, he couldn't really account for most of it in terms of receipts; he certainly hadn't benefited from any of it himself. The important thing was that a lot of people in dire straits had benefited instead, and surely that was what mattered to a Christian institution? Or what _should_ matter, anyway. He and Randall Deloitte had exchanged Views on that particular issue on previous visits, and he'd come prepared for another clash between the accountant's preference for practical economics and his own for practical charity.

It seemed, however, that on this occasion he would not be the recipient of the usual scathing reprimand. He was entirely at sea as to why not.

He knew, of course, that God sometimes works in mysterious ways. He had rather less faith in His ability to magic an amount like that out of thin air and deposit it in the bank account of an extremely insignificant parish in a seedy and run-down back street of San Francisco. And although he was briefly grateful for the respite, he was intensely worried as to how such a sum had made its way mistakenly into the parish accounts. Somebody, somewhere, would be short of that money.

"Nope – no mistake. All checked out and verified." The accountant spun happily through the records. "It's been a wonderful year. Bumper receipts."

 _A wonderful year,_ Mackenzie thought to himself. Seven million people dead, and 'it's been a wonderful year'.

He shut his mouth firmly on the unchristian expression that sprang to his lips.

"Guess we won't have to have our little chat today after all!" Even the espresso coffee was delicious, if the smack of the lips that followed it was any indication.

"It seems not." Dazed, he helped himself to the tea, his mind still in a whirl. It went some way towards steadying him, but not nearly far enough. As he sipped at it, he formed a resolution. If there was no arguing with this … _probably decent man, just doing his job_ , then there was the bank. They could go through the parish's accounts and give him the information he needed. And then someone somewhere would get a refund in full.

And to hell with what the Accounts Department thought.

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	2. Chapter 2

"Good morning, Father, what can we do for you today?"

He was well known at the bank. Most of the people he helped didn't have bank accounts, and living in a district like his it wasn't the best thing to keep any type of cash card in your possession. So he carried out his transactions in person, and was on first-name terms with all of the tellers who worked here – and most of the senior staff too.

"Good morning, Abby. I don't want to make any withdrawals today, thank you. I'd just be really grateful if you could print me out a statement of all the receipts this month, please."

"My pleasure." It wasn't a request she received often, at a guess; these days most people carried out their business online, using hand-held devices such as mobile phones or PADDs, but the bank kept a printer for their more old-fashioned customers like himself. He'd had the offer of a more up-to-date medium himself, to go with the job, but refused it; for one thing it was likely to be a target for thieves, and for another he'd probably have found himself unable to resist the temptation to sell it to raise funds for the latest good cause. She keyed in the request, and while the computer retrieved the information and the printer chattered as though excited to see some activity, the two of them discussed the holiday she'd just come back from in Texas. "There you go, Father! Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Not right now, Abby. Maybe later. Thank you."

There was a small park opposite, and he retreated to a quiet bench to read through the printout. It didn't take long. And it certainly wasn't difficult to identify where the debit amount changed dramatically to a credit.

He ran a finger across the page anxiously to identify the source.

 _Starfleet?_

Now he _knew_ an error had been made. And it was one that he had to have rectified as soon as possible. Somehow, someone in the organization had made an error in the payments processing. They ought to get it sorted at once. There was no saying how much worry and distress a mistake like this might have caused to innocent people.

He walked home in a very troubled frame of mind. Naturally he didn't want whoever had made the mistake to get into trouble, but this was quite a considerable sum of money. Somebody would be missing it. People's lives could be wrecked by such innocent errors.

After a certain amount of resistance, his computer grudgingly flickered into life. It supplied the General Inquiries number for Starfleet HQ. He'd hoped there would be more information than that, but at a guess the organization would have been pretty well under siege in the past half-year; as well as those who were grateful for being saved from the Xindi threat, there were plenty of people who blamed Starfleet for getting them noticed by hostile aliens in the first place. Terrorist organizations like Terra Prime had sprung up like mushrooms in the wake of the attack, and Starfleet must be well aware of the very real threat of revenge attacks on their own territory. They wouldn't be keen to give out more information than absolutely necessary.

Using the ancient telephone in the presbytery, he dialed the General Inquiries number.

It was engaged for the first few times he tried, but eventually it rang out and was answered. The guy at the other end must have been hired for his absolute determination to be unhelpful, or else he'd been given specific instructions that nobody in the Accounts Department was to be asked to take a call from anyone short of the UE Government Office. After spending about twenty minutes trying vainly to explain the situation and speak to anyone who might be willing to deal with it, Father Mackenzie rang off and went into church, where he spent half an hour on his knees praying for forgiveness for another burst of uncharitable thoughts.

It was a bit of a distance to the Bay, but not beyond him. At least if he turned up there in person he might be able to make enough of a nuisance of himself to get _someone_ to deal with him.

"Dear Lord, I never knew it was so difficult just being honest," he muttered as he locked the church door behind him.

He didn't have the money handy to use public transport, and he'd always refused to use the flitter that came with the parish. So he had a long walk in which to puzzle over what had happened.

There was no way he'd be back in time to make himself lunch, so he'd packed sandwiches and put them into one of the capacious pockets of his coat. As he walked, he checked every so often that he'd put his keys and the bank statement into the pocket that didn't have a hole in it; much like himself, the garment had seen a good few winters and was showing the wear and tear. It had gotten to the point now that he could wear it during the summer and not actually notice the weight.

It was a hot day, and he wasn't as young as he'd used to be. So it was a somewhat footsore and weary priest who finally trudged up to the Reception area of Starfleet and stated his business there.

Maybe even in these days a cassock counted for something. At least the receptionist listened to him, even if she found it hard to believe that he was actually trying to return money he thought Starfleet had given him by mistake.

"I'm sure there wasn't any error, sir," she said doubtfully, looking at the bank statement. "Our accounts department double-check these payments before they go out."

Mackenzie mentally asked for patience. Sure, his hair was gray and nobody would ask questions about his age if he went to buy liquor, but surely he didn't give the impression of being mentally defective? "I'm sorry to be a nuisance, Miss, but it _must_ be a mistake," he said earnestly. "I have no connection with Starfleet. There's no reason why I should have had that money. I just want to give it back, so that it can go where it should have gone in the first place."

She hemmed and hawed for a little longer, but finally consented to send an Instant Message (whatever that might be) to the appropriate department; a phone call, it seemed, was out of the question. He was shown politely to a small private room, watched by a distrustful security guard, and left there to contemplate eternity.

During the next two hours, a succession of people came to see him. They all asked questions, inspected the bank statement, verified his identity, and looked variously puzzled and suspicious.

By this time, all he wanted to do was escape. If he hadn't been so worried about what its loss might do to some innocent person, he'd have bolted out of there and donated the whole disputed amount to charity before he got home.

The latest of what he'd begun to think of as his persecutors handed back his bank statement, stared at him, and began tapping information into a PADD.

"Couldn't you just tell the bank you made a mistake and take it back? Sort it out afterwards?" he almost pleaded. The day was getting on by now, and he had a long walk home. "I don't want the money. It's not mine. I just want to clear this up and go home."

The woman squinted at him severely over her spectacles. She was plump and fiftyish, and he could guess she was the terror of her department. "We have to investigate any incident of possible financial mismanagement, Father."

"But … I'm sure it was just a mistake… an honest mistake…"

She tapped some more information into the screen, and looked up with an air of triumph. "I thought so. There has not been _any_ mistake on Starfleet's part. This is the authority to pay. Please verify your account details."

A swipe of the screen ensured that the identity of the issuer was redacted before she handed it over. And sure enough, the name was there: St Jude's Parish Church, San Francisco. There _were_ no other churches by that name in the city. And the account details were correct to the last digit.

He blinked at the PADD in total bewilderment. His previous certainty dissolved away into confusion and doubt. There seemed no way now to deny that the money had been legally and deliberately donated to the parish coffers, but who would do such a thing? And why?

"Could you just tell me the name of the donor?" he croaked.

She looked as though he'd asked her to strip naked and perform a karaoke in public. "That would be completely contrary to Starfleet policy. If you have no idea who it was, then it was evidently an anonymous donation. I would be contravening very strict data control regulations if I were to do any such thing."

Of course. He should have thought of that. He nodded apologetically. "I'm sorry, I should never have asked. I realize I put you in a difficult position. I know you'd give me any information you could."

Her ample bosom heaved a bit, but he thought his apology had mollified her somewhat. She took back the PADD less forcibly than she might have done, and glanced down at it. It was plain to him that she was wavering, but rules were rules.

"If I may borrow that pen of yours, Father, I'll write down the number of a taxi firm. If you mention you've been here on official business, they'll give you a good price."

He opened his mouth to say he couldn't afford even a reduced rate, but shut it again. He'd learned down the years that people liked to be helpful, and even if he didn't take up the offer she'd feel better for believing she'd done him a kindness. After all, she'd never know. "I appreciate that very much, Miss."

"My pleasure." She took the bank statement from him, wrote rapidly on the bottom corner of it, folded it and handed it back. "I'm sorry I can't be any more helpful than that."

"You've done all you can. Good evening, Miss." He put his battered old hat back on, but raised it politely to her as they reached the front door. "Please thank everyone whom I've put to any trouble."

"No trouble at all. It's a pleasure to find an honest man like you, Father."

He walked slowly down to the Bay. He was hungry by this time, though one of his interrogators in the Starfleet Headquarters had taken pity on him and given him a cup of tea. Maybe when he'd eaten he'd feel more up to the long walk home.

He got a drink of water from a public drinking-fountain, found a bench and unwrapped the sandwiches. They were flat and warm and not very appetising, but he was too hungry to care. He bit into one of them as he took the statement from his other pocket and flapped it open. He wasn't going to ring the number, but he'd studied graphology back in his Uni days, and he was still interested in examining people's writing.

But to his astonishment, there was no number there. There was a single word.

 _Enterprise._

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	3. Chapter 3

He ate his sandwiches, staring thoughtfully out across the water. It was plain that there would be no more information from that source; indeed, it would be unthinkable even to try to speak to her again. She'd done more than she ought, and taken a big risk by doing so. After all, she didn't know he wouldn't rat her out to her superiors for breaking the regulations she'd mentioned.

The starship had returned from its long mission some weeks ago, to a heroes' welcome for the weary crew – fewer in number than they'd been when they set out. He was unacquainted with the procedure normally followed on such occasions, but he imagined that after all the reports and interviews and official fêting were over, the crew would be released to take accumulated shore leave. Having been away so long, at a guess they would be entitled to some considerable time – and he imagined that, having gone through such ordeals as the newspapers and newscasts had ceaselessly speculated about and talked over, they would be allowed additional leave to recover from the trauma.

It was therefore unlikely in the extreme that any of them were still in the building behind him. They would have spread out across the globe, returning to their families and loved ones. He said a prayer for the bereaved whose nearest and dearest had not been among those to return in triumph; certainly it must be of some comfort that their loss might perhaps be considered a worthwhile sacrifice in return for the saving of a world, but a sacrifice and a loss it had still been, and an aching hole torn in the fabric of twenty-seven families.

By this time, the sun was westering. People were strolling past, enjoying the late evening sunshine, and he had a long walk home in front of him.

He sighed. If he could persuade the computer to start up again he could scroll through the pictures of the _Enterprise_ crew – there were plenty available, since from highest to lowest their identities and histories had been the subject of almost endless interest. He seemed to remember that they numbered about eighty souls in all. He was reasonably sure that none of them belonged to his parish, or were personally known to him; it wasn't even likely that they were related to any of his parishioners, to explain this act of lunatic generosity. So it would be a search of those eighty faces (the dead could not be discounted, because this might be some bequest made through the terms of a will) in the hope that something somewhere about one of them might give him a clue.

It wasn't as though the discovery was absolutely imperative. Whoever the donor might be, he or she was known to God, and prayers of gratitude for their generosity did not need to be addressed to the Almighty with a specific name attached. Since the gift had been made anonymously, the giver clearly wished not to be identified, or at least to have their generosity kept secret. But Father Mackenzie had often had trouble with what his superior in the seminar had described as 'inappropriate curiosity' – back in those days it had chiefly reared its head on the subject of the dichotomy between the Gospel accounts, but still, he was sometimes sadly lacking in the capacity to accept a thing as just 'a mystery'. Except the mystery of God's love for mankind, of course, for which there was no other solution than gratitude.

He probably wouldn't have the energy by the time he got back home, and tomorrow he had parish visits scheduled that would keep him for most of the day. He brightened at the thought that he could pay another visit to the bank first, and draw on some of those unexpected funds to do more of God's work among the poor. Maybe tomorrow night, after supper – if, of course, he could get his computer to cooperate.

After a last glance across the radiant water, he stood up and turned around to walk to the pavement.

There was a flitter parked up at the curb directly behind him. It was new, smart, and dark blue, and even he could see that its sleek lines were extremely stylish. It was also empty except for the driver, who was dressed all in black – casual clothes, but very neat. A thick silver chain lay on top of his black T-shirt, though his hands on the wheel were bare of jewelry.

He was Caucasian, probably in his late thirties, with dark, impeccably-neat backswept wavy hair and high, chiseled cheekbones. Reflective sunglasses hid his eyes, which seemed to be staring out towards the Bridge, but as the priest made to walk past the flitter a slight movement of one well-manicured thumb triggered the passenger door open.

Thinking that this had been done for the benefit of some nearby person he hadn't noticed, Mackenzie blinked around, intending to step aside to let them past.

There was no-one near them. And the sunglasses were now unmistakably facing in his direction.

"Transport to St Jude's Church, right, Father?" The accent was Australian.

"Er …. I don't think I …"

"Orders from back there." He indicated the Starfleet HQ with a slight jerk of his head. "Long distance. Getting late. And forget about the fare."

"Well, I – it's very kind…" There was no doubt about it, it _was_ a long way home. With some trepidation he stepped into the flitter, wondering to whom he owed this kindness; probably, at a guess, to the pleasant lady who'd given him the name of the ship. He half-expected the vehicle to dip slightly under even his weight, but it remained perfectly stable. He sat down, and secured the seat-belt.

The vehicle moved smoothly into the flow of traffic. Its driver made no attempt at conversation, but switched on the music player. It was pre-programmed into classical music, and the current track (one he did not know) ended within a few minutes. The next one, however, he recognized with a small, warm glow of pleasure: one of his favorites, Part's _Spiegel im Spiegel._

"You like this one, then," said the driver conversationally.

"Why, yes, I do." He'd given a little happy nod as the crystal notes spilled from the loudspeaker; doubtless the Australian had caught that with his peripheral vision.

"Yeah. Decent stuff. Could do things with that piano." There was a packet of dried pineapple slices in the compartment of the dashboard, and the other man popped one into his mouth and munched it. "Help yourself, mate."

He wasn't really fond of dried fruit – not that he often got the chance to taste such a luxury item – but it seemed ungracious to refuse, so he took a small piece, and leaned back with his eyes closed to enjoy the sweetness and the sound of the music.

The journey that had seemed so very long earlier in the day passed in a surprisingly short time. The track came to an end just as they pulled up opposite St. Jude's; he wondered with the idle curiosity of a music-lover what the next would be.

He recognized it immediately. The individual slow notes fell exquisitely across the barely audible hum of the flitter's idling motor.

Ólafur Arnalds' _And They Have Escaped the Weight of Darkness_ … and his favorite track of them all from it, 'Kjurrt'.

Two tracks in a row that he loved, and that he often played in his apartment, especially when troubled in spirit. God, he'd always felt, worked strongly through some pieces of music.

He turned to the man beside him. "Have we … have we met before?"

A glance, though the mirror lenses were impenetrable. "Don't go to church much, mate. Not a god-botherer."

Not at church, then, but surely somewhere … He certainly hadn't ever traveled to Australia, but the certainty nagged at him that somehow, somewhere, he and this guy had met before, however briefly.

Still, if for some reason the stranger – this oddly _familiar_ stranger – wanted to maintain the pretense that they hadn't, it was not his place to persist. "I'm sorry. Just for a minute, I thought – but it must have been someone else."

"Chance." A click of the switch activated the flitter door. "Mind how you go, Father."

With some reluctance (it seemed that the boy's love of new and powerful machinery hadn't been quite subsumed into the man's proper perspective of such things being quite outside his universe) he swung his legs out. Still, it seemed that a compliment for the vehicle would be in order. "She's really beautiful," he said, touching the dashboard reverently. "Must have cost you some."

"Payment for small services rendered," the driver replied lightly.

Mackenzie opened his mouth to ask what sort of services earned a reward like this, but that was none of his business. He merely nodded, thanked him again, and got out.

There wasn't much traffic around; it was the work of a moment to cross the street. He wondered briefly if he should tell the guy to get out of here as fast as that powerful engine would drive, because there were plenty of people in the vicinity who'd relieve him of that lovely vehicle before you could say _flitter_ , but somehow the priest didn't get the impression that the driver was all that worried about getting attacked, whoever he was.

The church was still locked. He fished his key out of his pocket and inserted it.

It seemed that nothing had changed in his absence: the late evening light fell softly through the windows, lighting the empty pews. But still, the strange conviction lingered…

He turned around.

The flitter hadn't moved. The driver was completely still, gazing across the road at him. And then, in the instant before the engine roared into life, he gave the smallest smile and lowered the glasses for just a couple of seconds before replacing them and driving away.

As the priest stared after him, images tumbled through his mind: shots from newscasts mingled with old scraps of memory.

 _Enterprise_ , sent out to save the world from the Xindi. Like everyone else, he'd been appalled by the attack and terrified that a second and worse might follow; had seen pictures of those men and women aboard the ship that represented Earth's best – if not only – hope of survival.

Naturally, the officers had garnered the most attention. The image of one in particular had teased him with the same shreds of half-recognition that refused to be resolved. He'd decided eventually that it could be no more than one of those tricks the mind sometimes played: what could Lieutenant Malcolm Reed ever have had to do with him?

But now, in the very shadow of the church, he recalled an evening years previously. An evening when he'd found a rain-sodden, desolate young Englishman standing here in front of this locked door as though there was nowhere else in this world for him to go.

English, not Australian: he remembered that much, mostly because he hadn't met many English people so that beautifully modulated accent had been unusual. But an Australian accent wouldn't be that difficult to assume. And he remembered that the young stranger had followed him home as meekly as a lamb; a lost lamb, for whom he'd felt the same pity as for any helpless young person adrift on the tide of events.

He couldn't recall precisely what had happened, though he seemed to remember the guy had stayed overnight in the spare room. And they'd listened to music (yes, he was pretty sure of that!) and talked some, and memory suggested that his guest had been desperately troubled in mind about something. When he'd left the next morning he'd been calm, seeming committed to some course of action, though the priest had suspected that the veneer of resignation hid something perilously close to despair.

For a while Mackenzie had half expected to see him again, and then both memory and expectation slid slowly beneath the tide of his own everyday life. Eventually both had been forgotten, only for the former to stir again at each image of an Englishman sent out on what many thought a hopeless quest – if not an outright insane gamble.

And now here he was again. No longer that lost young man: a lieutenant in Starfleet now, a hero, one of the victors in the fight for Earth's survival. But the face glimpsed so briefly behind the concealing sunglasses had not – for all its small smile – been that of a hero. A victor, maybe, but the cost had been terrible. There were lines on that face that hadn't been there before, lines of exhaustion and sorrow. Perhaps it was only here, away from the glare of publicity and the demands of the 'victory parade', that he could let them show; perhaps in his hour of need he'd remembered where he'd found solace before, and drawn strength from the same Source. And on his return, he'd had the means to repay that long-past kindness a little. Because there was no doubt whatever in the priest's mind as to exactly who had instructed Starfleet's financial department to make that anonymous payment.

Slowly he went into the church again and closed the door, locking it carefully as he did every night. He was a little disappointed that the lieutenant hadn't felt that he could visit, but what could he know of the wounds the man had sustained in the intervening years, the burdens he'd had to bear during that search for the Xindi? A life that had contained more than its share of disillusionment made it impossible to believe that the quest had been as easy as the publicity statements claimed, that it had been as heroic and bloodless as so many of the public preferred to believe. The worn and weary captain who had returned with a smaller crew and a ship battered almost beyond recognition had been a very different man from the one who had set out all those months earlier. His face had borne the scars of conflicts that had torn him to the very soul; he had accepted the plaudits of a grateful Earth, but his eyes had not smiled. Twenty-seven of the crew he'd taken with him had not returned, and it was plain that the burden of their loss bore down on him beyond bearing.

In the deepening twilight, the steady red glow of the Presence Lamp up on the Sanctuary offered its unfailing comfort. It would do no harm to spend an extra couple of hours on his knees in prayer, for those who had not returned and – perhaps a more urgent need – for those who had. And even if the opportunity to convey his gratitude in person was to be denied him, he had absolute faith that God would find a way.

 **The End.**

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